Wild service tree

Crataegus torminalis Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 476. 1753

Trees, to 120[–200] dm. Stems 1; bark gray; winter buds green to brown, ovoid to ovoid-oblong, 5–10 mm, ˂scales dark-margined˃, shiny, glutinous, glabrous, ciliate, or villous. Leaves simple; stipules early deciduous, whitish-villous; blade slightly shiny, green to dark green adaxially, ovate to broadly elliptic, 5.5–10.5 × 3–8 cm, margins deeply 1–4 subpalmately lobed, lobes ˂± triangular˃, (1–)1.5–2.5 cm wide, basal sinuses deepest, margins finely serrate, secondary veins in 4–6 main pairs, apex acute to acuminate, abaxial surface thinly white-hairy to glabrate, adaxial glabrous. Panicles 15–60+-flowered, rounded, 3–17.5 cm diam.; peduncles whitish-villous. Pedicels whitish-villous. Flowers 10–17 mm diam.; hypanthium densely villous, hypanthium plus sepals 5.5–7.5 mm; sepals 1.5–3.5 mm, margins villous and prominently glandular, glands often relatively thick; petals white, elliptic, broadly elliptic, or broadly ovate, 4–7 mm; stamens 20; carpels adnate to hypanthium, apex conic, styles 2, 3.5–4 mm. Infructescences sparsely whitish-villous. Pomes brown, narrowly obovoid, 15–19 × 10–13 mm, dull, not glaucous; ˂lenticels abundant˃; sepals inconspicuous, incurved. Seeds brown, oblong-lanceoloid, 8.1 × 3.4 mm, slightly asymmetric, slightly flattened. 2n = 34, 68 (Europe).

Flowering spring; fruiting fall. Disturbed conifer forests; 0–50 m; introduced, Wash.; Europe; sw Asia; nw Africa.

In European gardens, one or more clones of intergeneric hybrids between Pyrus communis and Sorbus are called ×Sorbopyrus auricularis (Knoop) C. K. Schneider. J. Wiśniewska et al. (1969) suggested that S. torminalis may be involved in the parentage of at least one clone.